South Korea demands a more active role in the management of nuclear weapons from the Biden administration

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Monday he had called on the Biden administration to take an active role in handling nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, in part because the South Korean public is increasingly more worried about North Korean aggression.

“While nuclear weapons belong to the United States, information sharing, planning and training must be done jointly,” Yoon said in a Monday. maintenance with South Korea Chosun Ilbo.

Yoon said the US response to his request for “joint planning and exercise” of nuclear forces was “quite positive”.

The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday, but the SCMP noted that the United States and South Korea agreed to closer strategic cooperation and information sharing in September, during their first bilateral meeting on nuclear deterrence in nearly four years.

President Joe Biden speaks during his Christmas address in the East Room of the White House on December 22, 2022 in Washington, DC. President Biden gave the speech to wish Americans a happy holiday. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Chosun Ilbo Japanese media cited reports that South Korea and Japan, whose relations have been somewhat strained in recent years, “plan to share radar information that detects and tracks North Korean missiles through the Indo-Korean Command.” American Pacific.

North Korea staged its latest provocations over the weekend, launch three short-range ballistic missiles in the East Sea on Sunday, followed by a fourth on Sunday.

A man walks past a television screen showing a news broadcast with archival footage of a North Korean missile test, at a train station in Seoul on December 31, 2022, after North Korea fired three missiles short-range ballistics, according to the South Korean military (AFP)

Yoon responded to the launches by ordering his military to respond “with a firm determination not to avoid going to war”, a somewhat convoluted way of telling them not to be intimidated by Korea’s nuclear arsenal. North.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry on Monday announced the creation of a new directorate under its Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to manage North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction. The Defense Ministry has warned that the communist regime in Pyongyang “will face the end” if it uses nuclear weapons.

This photo provided by the North Korean government shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at a parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea, September 8, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP )

North Korean state media on Sunday described a haphazard-than-usual address by North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-un to the Workers’ Party leadership last week, in which he claimed South Korea was “determined to build reckless and dangerous armaments”. -up.”

Kim therefore instructed his military to begin mass-producing nuclear warheads and missile launch systems to implement “an exponential increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal”.

“We have declared our resolve to respond with nuclear weapon for nuclear weapon, and an all-out confrontation for an all-out confrontation,” the dictator railed.

“Our nuclear force sees it as the first mission to deter war and safeguard peace and stability and, however, if it fails to deter, it will carry out the second mission, which will not be for defence,” he said. he declared.

Kim made the remarks while overseeing this Chosun Ilbo described as a “bizarre ceremony” in which his party bestowed its blessing on “very large multiple rocket launchers capable of carrying nuclear weapons”, as Kim described them.

Chosun Ilbo said the launchers were indeed large and might be able to hit “any target in South Korea”.

Kim order the development of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) whose “primary mission” would be a “rapid nuclear counterattack”, implicitly against the United States, and it has pledged to launch Korea’s first military satellite from the North “as soon as possible”. ”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sacked Pak Jong Chon, vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission. Chon was the second most powerful military official after Kim Jong Un https://t.co/NXBNFHx0E1 pic.twitter.com/wzWPcBFCWS

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 2, 2023

Sunday’s bulletin from North Korea’s state news agency KCNA also included the disturbing news that the communist regime’s top military official, Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Pak Jong-chon, had been sacked without warning. warning or explanation. The chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission is Kim Jong-un himself.

Reuters noted that Pak may not be dead, but he is very quickly erased:

No reason for the change was given. Pyongyang routinely reorganizes its leadership, and the year-end party rally has often been used to announce major personnel reshuffles and policy decisions.

State television showed Pak sitting in the front row of the podium with his head bowed during the meeting as other members raised their hands to vote on personnel matters. His seat was later shown unoccupied.

He was also missing in photos released Monday by the official KCNA news agency of Kim’s New Year’s Day visit to the Kumsusan Sun Palace which houses the bodies of his grandfather and father, unlike October where Pak accompanied Kim on a trip to the palace to mark a celebratory anniversary.

Pak was a former rising star who rose from artillery commander to four-star general and member of the Politburo in just five years, then suffered a modest setback in 2021 when Kim harangued and demoted many of his senior officials for mishandling the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. His sudden dismissal is interesting as Kim recently praised his military for doing a great job developing new weapons to meet his demands.

Seoul-based analyst Oh Gyong-sup of the Korea Institute for National Unification told Reuters that Pak could have been embarrassed and expelled last week alarming saga of North Korean drones flying in South Korean airspace with impunity.

South Korea responded by sending three their drones into North Korea without prompting a response, which turned a moment of triumph for Pyongyang into embarrassment, so Oh thought Pak might have taken the fall.

Pak has been replaced by Ri Yong-gil, also a general and a high-ranking member of the Central Military Commission. Ri is known for his willingness to carry out Kim’s extremely belligerent orders. He survived some political turmoil in 2016 when he missed some high-level meetings and South Korean intelligence services thought he could have been executed for corruption. Kim was going wild at the time in brutal purges, but in the end, Ri obviously survived and even received new titles.